by Nevil Shute
Sheila found her voice. "I suppose you thought I was going to marry Peter," she said. "Well, how do you know I'm not?"
Antony gazed at her round-eyed. "But you sent him away!" he said.
"He'd have been perfectly miserable in China," said the girl.
For a moment Antony's brain worked rapidly, then he sat up in bed. "You sent him away because of that?" he said. "But didn't you tell him?"
The girl turned away her head. "Not about that," she said at last "I—I just told him that I couldn't go to China. It was better that way."
"I see," said Antony slowly. "But what's going to happen now?"
Sheila raised her head and smiled. "I think he'll poke about and get a job in England that we can marry on," she said. "And then he'll come back."
Antony lay back in bed and gazed out of his window.
Outside there were chimney pots, russet and black, and sparrows, and a great expanse of blue sky and white cloud. The girl, expecting some commendation, waited, and as she waited the smile died from her lips. Antony thought she had done wrong.
"He'll never come back," said Antony.
He turned to her before she could reply. "It's only the small men who come back," he said, "the men of no courage or the men of no principle. A man who acts on principles will never come back, because that would be giving in. Didn't you know that? Lots of men would far rather go unmarried than marry a girl who keeps them dangling on a string and expects them to come back. They stand by the first answer."
The girl gazed at him steadily. "Do you mean I've lost him?" she said.
Antony leaned forward and took one of her hands in his. "I'm frightfully glad you came today," he said. "I don't think you've lost him at all. But you hurt him frightfully, you know. It was the wrong way to take him altogether. You see, he was giving up everything that he cared for to go to China for you . . , and you told him that you couldn't give up even the little things. Didn't you think it would pay to be honest with him?"
He paused and continued, "Do you remember the morning he left, when he and I got up early to photograph the birds? You remember that etching I made of you? He asked if he might have it once before, and 1 had it all ready for him then, done up in paper. And he wouldn't take it.
"And then of course, I knew that he wasn't coming back. He's not the sort, you know."
He lay back on his pillows. A copy of a gaudy French comic paper slipped from under the bedclothes and fluttered to the floor. Sheila realized that probably it had been secreted on her arrival. Mechanically she picked it up and placed it on the table.
After a time she got up. "Do you know what I'm going to do?" she said. "I'm going to walk up to the Turl and get you a bowl of hyacinths, in peat, you know. It's silly of you not to have any flowers. What colours would you like?"
Antony considered. "White and blue, please, in a blue bowl," he said. "And think it over."
The girl stood looking down on him, chewing her glove.
"You're rather a dear," she said at last. "I think I shall have to write to Peter, shan't I?"
"I should think it's the best thing you can do," said Antony cheerfully. "You ought to have done it weeks ago."
It was a very long letter. Sheila wrote it in her bedroom one evening; it took a long time to write partly on account of its length and partly on account of the view over the woods from her window. It was evening, and whether the sunset influenced her letter or her letter drew her attention to the sunset is a point that probably will never be cleared up. For the rest of her life she remembered every detail of that evening; years afterwards she could sit down in the sunset and recall the phrases that she had written to her lover.
It was a very bulky letter, but she squeezed it into an envelope, walked down to the post, and posted it to Dennison in London.
It is curious how seldom one gets the answer to a letter of importance. One calculates the posts and one determines the hour of the arrival of the reply; it should come by the second post next Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, lying awake in bed, one admits a doubt, born perhaps of previous experience. Perhaps Wednesday was a little too soon to expect an answer. The answer to such a letter would take a little time to prepare; one could not really expect it on Wednesday and, whatever happens, one will not be disappointed if it doesn't come. Wednesday passes, and Thursday.
And perhaps the answer never comes at all.
Sheila was dismayed. She had been prepared for a rebuff, unlikely though she had thought it. But that Dennison should not have answered her letter at all was incomprehensible. It was not his way.
In her letter she had suggested that they should meet in town to discuss their affairs. Now she sent him a postcard, stating very briefly where she would be lunching when she went to town on the following Saturday. To that there was no reply.
She lingered over her lunch till three o'clock, then took a taxi for Chelsea. Already she suspected that he must be away, yet she must put the matter to the test, whatever the cost. She could not return home with nothing accomplished, nothing to bring her peace of mind.
Dennison lived in the middle of a long row of drab grey houses. Sheila paid off her taxi, marched up the steps, and rang the bell.
The maid came to the door. "Can I see Mr. Dennison?"
The maid hesitated. "He's gone away, miss," she said.
So that was it.
"I see," said Sheila. "Do you know when he'll be back?"
"I don't know, miss," said the girl. "He's gone flying—on the sea, you know. With them in the papers." Then, with evident relief. "Mr. Lanard is upstairs it you would like to sec him. He knows all about it."
Sheila produced a card. "Will you ask Mr. Lanard if he can give me Mr. Dennison's address?"
The maid took the card and went upstairs. Presently she returned. "Will you come up?"
Sheila followed her upstairs and into the sitting room. Gazing past the maid and past Lanard she saw her letter and her postcard on the mantelpiece.
Then her attention was directed to Lanard. He stood on the hearthrug with her card in his hand, tall, dark, and very neat. He was not a handsome man at the best of times, and he greeted her with a particularly unpleasant smile. The girl's first impression was that this was the coldest and rudest man that she had ever had to deal with. His smile in itself was an insult, as though he had spat at her.
"Good afternoon. Miss Wallace," said Lanard. He spoke with little cordiality, and he said no more. He knew perfectly well with whom he had to deal. He had read Sheila's postcard to Dennison. Dennison was in New York at the moment; Lanard had determined to wait in that afternoon in case the girl turned up. He had been desperately worried over the flight. His was the temperament that broods and magnifies every danger in the imagination; he had been miserable since his friend had left. He blamed the girl who had started his friend on the run; he blamed himself that he had not gone with Dennison on the heve. There were times when a man needed looking after. That had been one of them.
Well, here was the girl. This was the girl who would be glad enough to marry Dennison if he remained in England, but who could not face the prospect of going out to China with her husband. And yet, one who could not let him go, but must tag on to him as long as he remained in reach to prevent him settling down to forget that he had loved. As she came into the room the fire blazed up in Lanard.
"I'm so sorry to bother you," said Sheila, "—but I wonder if you could give me Mr. Dennison's address? Is he away for long?"
"He's gone to America," said Lanard crisply. "He's in New York."
The girl faltered. "In—in New York?" she said. "Why— when did he go over there? Is he going to be away for long?"
"He'll be back in about a fortnight's time."
The girl was evidently puzzled. "Do you know what he went over there for? I mean, I saw him quite recently and there was no mention of it then."
"I don't suppose so," said Lanard. He paused and eyed her gravely, then continued picking his words with cruel care
.
"He has had a good deal of trouble recently. After it was all over he went away for a bit, and got mixed up in this attempt to fly the Atlantic. In an aeroplane. You have heard about it? Dennison is the navigator. I believe the pilot is a friend of yours. Mr. Morris."
The girl gazed at him steadily. "I knew nothing of this," she said.
Lanard smiled again and raised his eyebrows. "No?" he said. "Your brother knows the details. I believe he dined with Morris the other day. Perhaps it would be better if you were to ask him to tell you about it. He can probably tell you more than I."
The girl flushed angrily. "When is the flight to take place?' she demanded.
"On June the second."
"Can you give me Mr. Dennison's address in New York?" She took a paper and pencil from her bag.
Lanard stiffened visibly. "I wonder if I may ask—why?"
"Certainly," answered the girl coldly. "I am sending him a cable of good wishes for the flight."
For a moment there was a battle of glances. "No," said Lanard. "I'm afraid I can't give you the address." "Why not?" demanded the girl.
Lanard did not answer at once, but put his hands into his pockets, crossed to the window, and stood for a moment looking down into the street. When he spoke again it was in a gentler tone.
"Don't you think it would be better to let him alone for the present?" he said. "This flight is a serious matter—a dangerous matter. It's very dangerous. People who do that sort of thing have to work very carefully on the preparations, you know. Nothing must be forgotten, nothing must be left to chance. They have to give the very best work there is in them to the preparations. If they don't, they get killed. The flight itself is nothing in importance to the work done beforehand. You see that? If you cable to him now, you'll put him off his stroke and spoil his work entirely. You'll upset him."
He turned suddenly from the window. "And damn it!" he said savagely, "what right have you got to put him off like that? It was you that sent him into this infernal thing. Now the best thing you can do is to keep out of it. Let him alone. What do you want? You'll never get him back. You wouldn't go to China with him—but he'd have gone farther than that with you. He knows you now. He didn't before. You'll never get him back. Can't you make up your mind to let him alone?"
The fit passed, and he stood eyeing her moodily. She did not attempt to speak, but sat down on the edge of a chair and sat leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, playing with her gloves. For a full minute, it seemed to him, they remained like that without a word. Presently she raised her head and smiled at him, a little wistfully.
"We'll discount the heroics," she said. "I had heard nothing at all about all this. Thank you for telling me. I won't cable to him. I'll have back my letter and my postcard, please. Thank you."
She rose, and stood fingering the bulging letter. "As for China," she said. "I see you know all about it. I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you think it would have been good for Peter to have gone to China?"
"No," said Lanard slowly, "I don't."
"Nor do I," said the girl. She turned to go. "Think it over, Mr. Lanard." She smiled. "I think we shall be good friends one day," she said. "Good-bye."
Lanard was left alone. Moodily he stood in the window and watched her out of sight down the street, conscious that he had made a most colossal fool of himself. Whether it was the excitement of the interview, or whether unconsciously he had taken a chill, he became aware of the approach of one of his chronic gastric attacks, a very prince of stomach aches. He spent the evening huddled in his dressing gown over a fire that smoked but would not burn, a glass of tepid water at his side, one of the most anxious and most miserable men in London.
Sheila left the house and walked away down the street, dazed and numb. In a sense she was relieved in that she knew everything now. That is, she knew the broad outlines of the matter. The details she must find out. She was hot with anger against her brother. He had known of this all the time, and yet he had not told her.
She turned into the King's Road, bought a budget of newspapers at a tobacconist, and sat down in a teashop to read them. During this interim period the subject had been largely dropped; she found little in the daily papers. One of the weekly journals printed a man of the North Atlantic, showing the approximate point or commencement of the flight. Sheila gazed at it for a while in growing horror; it was right out in the middle, nearly halfway across.
In another paper she found a small paragraph to state that the Iberian had arrived in New York. Morris and Dennison were mentioned by name.
So it was true.
It was a painful week-end for Jimmie Wallace. It culminated in a journey, for instead of going up to town on Monday morning, he took the car and drove in a slightly different direction. He did not start till after lunch, so that it was nearly tea-time when he came driving down the lane to the aerodrome.
He passed the entrance to the works, drove on for half a mile, and stopped outside the little new house that stood by itself among the rudiments of a garden.
The maid opened the door. "Can I see Mrs. Morris?" he inquired.
He was shown into the drawing room. Outside in the garden he could see Helen Morris and another girl grubbing about in a border, and Morris's terrier puppy in vain pursuit of a bee. He glanced aimlessly about the room. Morris had never been a man for any display of his work and there was nothing in the house to show his profession, no ostentation of propellers or model aeroplanes. The room was very comfortable, with an open brick hearth surrounded by deep, chintz-covered chairs. To Wallace the whole room spoke of the man that he had known at Oxford. The little things were eloquent; the pipe upon the mantelpiece, the toasting fork in the fender, the long untidy bookcases filled with the russet and black of old calf.
His examination of Morris's ménage was interrupted by the entrance of his wife.
She came into the room like a breeze. "Mr. Wallace," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. Can you stay to tea? Stephen's away—but of course you know that. 1 was forgetting."
"I'd love to have some tea." said Wallace. "Afterwards I must get back—1 motored up from Berkshire and I must get back in time for dinner."
Helen Morris wrinkled her brows a little. "That's miles and miles," she said in wonder. "Would you like tea now—or wait till it comes? We can have it now—almost at once."
Wallace smiled. "I'd rather wait till it comes," he said.
He took off his coat and sat down on the arm of a chair. "First of all, I want to get my business off my chest if I may. I'm awfully glad to find you here. I WAS afraid you might have gone away for a change while Stephen is on this Stunt."
"No," said the girl. "Stephen wanted me to go home, but I wanted to get on with the garden, so I got Eileen Thatcher to come and stay with me. You remember Eileen? She was at Somerville when we were up. And I didn't want to go home."
Wallace nodded. He knew something of the opposition that the girl had had to face at home over her marriage. She had been one of the Rileys of Gloucestershire and of all her relations the only one to take kindly to Morris had been her father, now a great age. She was an only child; one day they would be well off. Wallace, sharing rooms with Morris at Oxford after the war, had watched them from the start.
He perched himself on the arm of his chair and plunged into his subject. "I've come to you because I want you to do something for me." He paused, worried by the difficulty of broaching his subject to the girl. At last he said, "Did you ever nicer this man Dennison?"
The girl shook her head. "No. Stephen wanted him to conic here, but they were so busy before they left and he had too much to do."
She glanced quickly at the perplexed young man. "It's about Sheila, isn't it?" she said.
"That's it," said Wallace with evident relief. "She's been having rather a bad time lately."
Helen Morris nodded. "Stephen told me there was something in the wind between those two," she said. "He never heard any details, because the man
wouldn't speak a word about any of you. And Stephen didn't mention it, of course. You told him about it, didn't you?"
Wallace, intent on piecing together his story, disregarded the question. "Well," he said, "it was like this. She first met him about four years ago when he was in hospital, or rather convalescing with an aunt of mine. Then he went away and only turned up again at Easter—this Easter. Mind you, he was quids in all the time I think, only they didn't write or anything."
Some strain of imagination latent in the girl enabled her to piece together this narrative and made the dry bones live. "I see," she said gravely.
"Well, then he got a job in Hong Kong or somewhere that was good enough to marry on—better than most. So back he came at Easter and put it to her as a workable proposition. Well, Sheila got an idea into her head that it wouldn't be a good thing for him to go to China. You see, it was pretty evident that he was only going out there because he wanted to get married. She thought that if they waited a year or two longer and he poked about a bit, he could get a job that they could marry on in England. So she turned him down, nominally because of China. It was taking a pretty big chance, of course. She thought that doing it that way would give him an incentive to find something else that he'd be happier in himself, and that then he'd come back again."
"She didn't tell him?"
"No. She thought it would be better that way. As it turned out, she was a damn sight too clever."
The girl gazed out of the open window into the sunlit garden. "Of course, every man is a perfect infant," she said, "but they aren't such infants as all that. It was brave of her."
"Anyway," said Wallace, "this lad took his pill and I was sorry to see him go. He's a good sort. Then—so far as I can make out—he went off in his yacht for a bit and got run down by your husband and co. That seems to have happened immediately after he left us."
He paused for a moment. "Now Sheila's found out all about it," he said, "and there's a most fearful scene of woe."